This article examines the potential and limitations of pedagogy of discomfort in a classroom of 10- and 11-year-old students of an integrated school in Northern Ireland. At the centre of the analysis are the students' and the teacher's emotional experiences and the resulting consequences when a discomforting pedagogical activity (an adaptation of…

A recent analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) indicates a White British-Black Caribbean achievement gap at age 14 which cannot be accounted for by socio-economic variables or a wide range of contextual factors. This article uses the LSYPE to analyse patterns of entry to the different tiers of national mathematics…

Literature in the United States provides many examples of no difference in student achievement when measured against the mode of test administration i.e., paper-pencil and online versions of the test. However, most of these researches centre on "regular" students who do not require differential teaching methods or different evaluation processes…

This article reports a quasi-experimental study on the effects of multimedia teaching and learning in English Literature--a subject which places high cognitive load on students. A large-scale study was conducted in 4 high-achieving secondary schools to examine the differences made to students' learning and performance by the use of multimedia and…

This article reports the results of the first systematic, though only exploratory, study that assesses the effectiveness of the Philosophy for Children (commonly known as P4C) programme in promoting children's critical thinking in Hong Kong. Forty-two Secondary 1 students volunteered for this study, from whom 28 students were randomly selected and…

In the UK and elsewhere, large-scale educational assessment agencies are shifting the mode of school examination marking towards having examiners mark examination scripts on screen rather than on paper. This shift has prompted questions about whether the mode of marking might influence examiner marking accuracy, particularly in relation to…

Research has found that grades are the most valid instruments for predicting educational success. Why grades have better predictive validity than, for example, standardized tests is not yet fully understood. One possible explanation is that grades reflect not only subject-specific knowledge and skills but also individual differences in other…

Cross-age peer mentoring is an educational model that builds on peer support and mentoring to assist young people to enhance social relationships, develop cognitive skills, and promote positive identity development. In this article, we outline the evaluation process of a cross-age peer-mentoring program implemented in an Australian secondary…

Human capital theorists perceive of educational expansion as beneficial to individuals, corporations and national economies, while social closure theorists have claimed that inflation of credential requirements maintains traditional status inequalities. In this paper I argue that status inequalities are not only maintained by credential inflation,…

We live in difficult times--socially, economically and politically--and it is right that learned societies, such as the British Educational Research Association, reflect on their purpose and direction. We cannot take for granted the social contract that supports the funding of social science and educational research. This paper reflects on…

The article seeks to elucidate and academically position the genre of critical arts-based research in education. The article fuses Critical Race Theory (CRT), life history and performance, alongside work with undocumented American students of Mexican origin, to show how a politicised qualitative paradigmatic re envisioning can occur in which…

This study examined the mediator and moderator roles of self-regulation and motivation constructs in the relationship between learning experience and academic success. Self-reported measures of learning experience, self-regulation and motivation were obtained from 384 undergraduate students from a university in Hong Kong. Structural equation…

A common theme within the literature on higher education is the congested nature of the graduate labour market. Researchers have highlighted the lengths to which many students now go, in response to this congestion, to "distinguish themselves" from other graduates: paying increased attention to university status; engaging in a range of…

There are counter-narratives of youth as at risk and as buoyant and agentive. The article maps the conceptual terrain concerning resilience, well-being, buoyancy, enjoyment and happiness and selects factors related to the successful navigation of schooling. It analyses data from a subset of a national data set, from 65 young people considered to…

In this paper, the focus is on how a group of Australian educators support student equity through cultural recognition. Young's theorising of justice is drawn on to illuminate the problematic impacts arising from the group's efforts to value students' cultural difference associated, for example, with quantifying justice along distributive lines…